Sometimes it’s hard to know what to make of the conventional wisdom. It has been the conventional wisdom, for quite some time now, that newspapers are on their way out. It has been assumed, in many quarters, that the public service newspapers were once thought to provide is on the wane, with readers happy to grab bits and pieces of palatable info from their own personal mixes of social media and news apps. It has been the conventional wisdom that notions of newspapers being “crucial to democracy” are sort of cute, in a quaint and nostalgic way, but for all practical purposes, terribly outmoded.

And yet, the conventional wisdom is sometimes easily changed by a single event; one that turns on its head everything that “just about everyone” thought they knew. The series of newspaper stories run in The Washington Post and Britain’s The Guardian based on Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency (NSA) leaks are such an event. On Monday, both papers won the Pulitzer prize in public service for their articles detailing the mind-boggling scope of the U.S. government’s intrusion into the private lives of its own citizens (not to mention the rest of the world). The recognition was well-earned; without Snowden’s documents and the Post and Guardian stories painting the picture of their significance, how could the public ever have discovered the wholescale secret infringements of its rights that was occurring on a daily basis?

The reaction to the Snowden revelations has been mixed, it’s true. Though I can’t personally understand it, some people consider it no big deal that, as The New York Times put it in an editorial sympathetic to Snowden, “The NSA broke federal privacy laws, or exceeded its authority, thousands of times per year, according to the agency’s own internal auditor.” Or that “[t]he NSA systematically undermined the basic encryption systems of the Internet, making it impossible to know if sensitive banking or medical data is truly private, damaging businesses that depended on this trust.” But many people do consider it a big deal, and those people can’t make informed decisions about government surveillance and data collection policies unless they know what’s actually going on. Perhaps the most important thing the Snowden leaks taught us is that we certainly can’t rely on the government officials in charge of the information-gathering process — the intelligence agency or law enforcement heads — to be upfront about what they’re doing, even when they’re testifying in an official capacity before Congress. Spies just don’t tend be very forthcoming about their activities or methods. And to be honest, neither is government. Which is why we need newspapers.

Voters keep governments in check, but they need good information to do it; information like that gathered by Edward Snowden and explained and reported on by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman, Ewen MacAskill and the other writers at the Post and Guardian. Before these stories broke, most U.S. voters would have scoffed at the notion that their government would even consider collecting data on millions of Americans. Now they know that the NSA was doing it. And they will be able to cast future ballots accordingly. They will also be able to make a stink about the inevitable efforts to expand government surveillance powers the next time we’re hit with a security threat (or the threat of such a threat).

Edward Snowden himself called the awarding of the Pulitzer to the Post and Guardian teams “a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government.” He’s right. Implied in his statement is the understanding that newspapers are a crucial tool in allowing the public to effectively play that role, even when those in power would find it more convenient if they didn’t.

Despite this week’s moral victory, both Edward Snowden and newspapers have an uphill battle ahead of them. The former remains stuck in Russia; the espionage and other charges he currently faces at home in the U.S. could land him in prison for decades. The latter must find new revenue models before the downward industry trend drags them under.

As a public, we should wish and work for their success. They have both done us a real service.

National Post

msoupcoff@theccf.ca

Marni Soupcoff is executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

The story has since been updated with a photo of Canada’s actual flag, not the one that subs the THC-bearing leaf for the one found on the maple tree, but Regret the Error has a screen grab of the original (a similar pic appears above).

WASHINGTON • WikiLeaks is defending itself against accusations that it may have put lives at risk by dumping uncensored U.S. diplomatic cables on the Internet.

In a series of cryptic Twitter messages, WikiLeaks suggested that sloppy handling by people who formerly worked with WikiLeaks and at least one mainstream media outlet resulted in the inadvertent disclosure of unredacted versions of all 251,000 State Department cables which the whistleblowing website is believed to possess.

Meanwhile, U.S. government officials have criticized WikiLeaks itself for including in its latest public release of tens of thousands of cables some documents which identify suspected militants and U.S. Embassy contacts by name.

Related

The latest squabble among current and former WikiLeaks insiders has become increasingly heated and arcane. But the key issue is who, if anyone, released unedited documents that could put those named at risk or complicate anti-terrorism operations.

In a message on its Twitter feed, which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is believed to control, WikiLeaks accused an unnamed “mainstream news organization” of having “disclosed all 251k unredacted cables.” In an earlier message on Tuesday, WikiLeaks said: “There has been no WikiLeaks error. There has been a grossly negligent mainstream media error, to put it generously.”

Earlier this week, German publications and a blog published by Wired magazine claimed that a 1.73 gigabyte password-protected file containing all the uncensored cables was “reportedly circulating somewhere on the Internet.” Wired quoted the editor of German publication Der Freitag saying that his paper had found the file and “easily obtained the password to unlock it.”

Two people familiar with behind-the-scenes machinations involving Assange and his former associates said that privately, Assange was blaming the alleged website security slip-up on his former WikiLeaks collaborator, Daniel Domscheit-Berg. Assange also was accusing London’s Guardian newspaper of making public the key to the alleged password-protected file in a book on WikiLeaks published earlier this year by two of the paper’s journalists.

A Guardian spokesperson said: “It’s nonsense to suggest the Guardian’s WikiLeaks book has compromised security in any way. Our book about WikiLeaks was published last February. It contained a password, but no details of the location of the files and we were told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours.”

RELEASES ACCELERATED

Former Assange collaborators suggest that the allegation by WikiLeaks that a mainstream media outlet made public uncensored cables is an attempt to divert attention from WikiLeaks’ own release, in its most recent public dump of State Department cables, of documents from which names should have been, but were not, deleted.

Several news organizations, including Reuters, have had complete sets of the cables for months. But WikiLeaks had only made a few thousand public until last week when it sharply speeded up the release. As of Wednesday, the website said it had released nearly 143,000 cables.

In a Twitter message on Wednesday, WikiLeaks claimed that it “has not released the names of any ’informants.”’ The website suggested that all the material it was releasing was “unclassified and previously released by mainstream media.”

A former WikiLeaks activist who reviewed the deluge of newly released material said the vast proportion of it was labeled “Unclassified.” But two media sources who reviewed the material said it also contained some unredacted classified documents.

Reuters examined two such documents, posted on the WikiLeaks website, where a U.S. government source was identified; in one case the cable, classified “Secret,” contained a clear notation: “protect source.”

U.S. and Australian officials also condemned WikiLeaks for releasing a cable, classified “Secret,” which identified by name 23 people in Australia whom U.S. and Australian authorities believed should be subjected to U.S. air travel curbs due to alleged contacts with Islamic militants in Yemen.

A U.S. counter-terrorism official said the disclosure would have “real consequences for counterterrorism activities around the globe. Giving our adversaries any advantage by releasing this information is simply insane.”

Neither Assange nor his principal antagonist, Domscheit-Berg, could be immediately reached for comment.

But Stephen Aftergood, an anti-secrecy activist at the Federation of American Scientists, noted that WikiLeaks lately seemed to be surrounded by “a lot of melodrama.” He added: “When criticized, the standard WL response is to deny error, shift responsibility to someone else, and attack the critic. It does not inspire much confidence.”

Reuters

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/08/31/ex-employees-media-responsible-for-release-of-uncensored-cables-wikileaks/feed/1stdWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at The High Court in London on July 13, 2011.News Corp. scandal: A timeline of arrests and resignationshttp://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/18/news-corp-scandal-a-timeline-of-arrests-and-resignations/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/18/news-corp-scandal-a-timeline-of-arrests-and-resignations/#commentsMon, 18 Jul 2011 22:19:11 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=79051

On Tuesday, Rupert Murdoch is expected to attend a parliamentary committee hearing and answer questions about News of the World operations in light of the phone hacking scandal, that now includes allegations that reporters bribed police for information. There are 3,700 potential phone hacking victims, including the murdered teen Milly Dowler and victims of the 2005 London train bombing. The scandal has not subsided since the News of the World – which had a circulation of 2.5 million copies a week – closed its doors for good. Instead, the list of media officials from within Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation empire, and London police officers implicated in the scandal continues to grow. After the jump, a comprehensive timeline of all the resignations, firings and arrests made to date, since police launched a new investigation in January.

Related

April 5Neville Thurlbeck, 50, a chief reporter at the paper is arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and unlawful interception of voicemail messages

Police also arrest Ian Edmondson, 42 who was fired from his post as assistant editor in January following an internal inquiry.

April 14
James Wetherup, 55, a senior reporter at the the News of the World, is arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to unlawfully intercept communications and unlawful interception of mobile phones. Mr. Weatherup also served as news editor at the British tabloid between 2004 and 2006 while Andy Coulson was editor.

June 8Lawrence Jacobs, worldwide corporate general counsel for News Corp., resigns to pursue “new challenges,” according to a press release.

June 20
News international turns over documents that contain “information relating to alleged inappropriate payments to a small number of MPS officers,” Paul Stephenson, former head of the Metropolitan wrote in a statement. British police launch Operation Elveden in response to the new allegations.

June 24
Police arrest an unidentified 39-year-old woman on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications. The BBC and national British newspapers say they believe the woman is Terenia Taras, a freelance journalist who contributed to the News of the World until 2006, and used to date a former assistant editor at the paper.

June 27
Laura Elston, 34, a reporter for the BritishPress Association news agency is the first person arrested who has not worked for News of the World. Police arrest her on suspicion of unlawfully intercepting voicemail messages.

July 7
News Corp. announces plans to close Britain’s best selling Sunday newspaper.

July 8Andy Coulson, 43, is arrested on suspicion of corruption and attempting to intercept communications, and released on bail. After serving as editor for four years, he resigned in 2007 when the paper’s royal reporter and a private investigator were jailed for hacking cellphone voicemails. He went on to become Prime Minister David Cameron’s media chief, but quit that position in January.

Tom Crone, a legal advisor with News International – the publishing division of News Corp. – for the past 20 years, resigns over his involvement with the phone hacking scandal. Mr. Crone told parliament in 2009 that he advised News International to pay £700,000 (CDN $1.1 million) to Gordon Taylor, a soccer executive, and victim of phone hacking.

July 14
The FBI announces they have launched an inquiry into the alleged hacking of the cellphones of victims of 9/11 by News Corp. reporters.

Neil Wallis, 60, who served as deputy editor under Andy Coulson between 2003 and 2007, and as executive editor since then, is arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications.

July 15Les Hinton, 67, announces his immediate resignation as publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and chief executive of Dow Jones & Co. after 52 years working for Mr. Murdoch’s News Corp. He was chairman of News International from 1995 to 2007, during which time, News of the World employees allegedly hacked phones.
“That I was ignorant of what apparently happened is irrelevant and in the circumstances I feel it is proper for me to resign from News Corp, and apologize to those hurt by the actions of the News of the World,” he said in his resignation letter.

July 17Paul Stephenson – head of the Metropolitan Police since 2009 – resigns over his ties to Neil Wallis, a former deputy editor at News of the World. A media company owned by Mr. Wallis provided “strategic communication advice and support to the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service),” from 2009 to 2010, while the deputy director of public affairs was on sick leave, the Guardian reported. Earlier this year, Mr. Stephenson allegedly accepted a five-week stay at a luxury health spa where Mr. Wallis worked as a public relations consultant.
“I may wish we had done some things differently, but I will not lose sleep over my personal integrity,” he said in a statement.

British police arrest Rebekah Brooks, 43, two days after she resigned as chief executive of News International, a position she has held since 2009. Ms. Brooks went from secretary to CEO in 22 years at News Corp. She became editor of News of the World in 2000, and The Sun‘s first female editor in 2003. She is also a friend and neighbour to British Prime Minister David

July 18John Yates – assistant commissioner at London’s Metropolitan Police Authority, and Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism chief – resigns amid the phone hacking scandal. In 2009, Mr. Yates decided not to re-open investigations into alleged phone hacking by journalists at the News of the World, but a probe launched in January this year, revealed that the police had 11,000 pages of evidence that detectives did not thoroughly examine.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/18/news-corp-scandal-a-timeline-of-arrests-and-resignations/feed/5stdJohn YatesUntangling the News of the World scandal: A timelinehttp://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/15/untangling-the-news-of-the-world-scandal-a-timeline/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/15/untangling-the-news-of-the-world-scandal-a-timeline/#commentsFri, 15 Jul 2011 12:50:16 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=78614

Below, the main events in the phone-hacking scandal leading to News Corp’s chairman Rupert Murdoch withdrawing his bid for British broadcaster BSkyB and closing the 168-year-old News of the World tabloid.

2000: Rebekah Wade is appointed editor of Britain’s best-selling Sunday tabloid News of the World. Aged 32 and the youngest national newspaper editor in the country, she begins a campaign to name and shame suspected pedophiles, leading to some alleged offenders being terrorised by angry mobs. She also campaigns for public access to the Sex Offenders’ Register, which eventually comes into law as “Sarah’s Law.”

2003: Ms. Wade becomes editor of tabloid the Sun, sister paper to the News of the World and Britain’s biggest selling daily. Andy Coulson, her deputy editor since 2000, becomes editor of the Sunday paper. Ms. Wade tells a parliamentary committee her paper paid police for information. News International later says this is not company practice.

November 2005: The Sunday tabloid publishes a story on a knee injury suffered by Prince William. That prompts complaints by officials of the royal court about voicemail messages being intercepted. The complaints spark a police inquiry.

January 2007: The News of the World’s royal affairs editor Clive Goodman is jailed for four months. Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire is given a 6-month prison term. Goodman and Mulcaire admitted conspiring to intercept communications while Mulcaire also pleaded guilty to five other charges of intercepting voicemail messages.

• After the two were sentenced, editor Coulson resigns, saying he took “ultimate responsibility,” though he says he knew nothing of the offences in advance.

May 2007: Coulson becomes the Conservative Party’s director of communications under leader David Cameron.

June 2009: Ms. Wade becomes CEO of News International. She marries, for a second time, becoming Rebekah Brooks.

July 2009: The Guardian newspaper says News of the World reporters, with the knowledge of senior staff, illegally accessed messages from the mobile phones of celebrities and politicians while Coulson was editor from 2003 to 2007.

September 2009: Les Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones and former executive chairman of Mr. Murdoch’s newspaper arm in Britain, tells a committee of legislators any problem with phone hacking was limited to the one case. He says they carried out a wide review and found no new evidence.

February 2010: The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sports Committee says in a report that it is “inconceivable” that managers did not know about the practice, which the legislators say was more widespread than the paper had admitted.

September 2010: Members ask parliament’s standards watchdog to begin a new investigation into the hacking allegations at the Sunday tabloid and its former editor Coulson.

January 2011: British police open a new investigation into allegations of phone hacking at the tabloid. Police had said in July 2009 there was no need for a probe into the allegations.

• The News of the World announces it has sacked senior editor Ian Edmondson after an internal inquiry.

• Coulson resigns as Mr. Cameron’s communications chief.

April:News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and Mr. Edmondson are arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept mobile phone messages. They are released on bail. The News of the World admits it had role in phone hacking.

July 4: A lawyer for the family of schoolgirl Milly Dowler, murdered in 2002, says he learned from police that the teenager’s voicemail messages had been hacked, possibly by a News of the World investigator, while police were searching for her. Some may also have been deleted, to make room for more, misleading her family into thinking she was still alive. Police later say that they have also been in touch with the parents of two 10-year-old girls killed in the town of Soham in 2002.

July 5: News International says new information has been given to police. The BBC says it related to e-mails appearing to show payments were made to police for information and were authorised by Coulson.

• The list of those possibly targeted includes victims of the London suicide bombings of July 7, 2005, and the parents of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal in 2007.

• U.K.’s Daily Telegraph says the News of the World hacked the phones of family of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

July 7: News Corp announces it will close down the News of the World. The July 10 edition was the last.

July 8: David Cameron announces two inquiries, one to be led by a judge on the hacking scandal, another to look at new regulations for the British press. Mr. Cameron says he takes full responsibility for employing Coulson as his spokesman, defending his decision to give him a “second chance.”

• Coulson is arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and suspicion of corruption. He is bailed until October.

• The News of the World’s former royal editor, Mr. Goodman, is re-arrested in connection with a police operation looking at alleged payments to police by journalists at the paper.

• Police search the offices of the Daily Star tabloid where Mr. Goodman freelanced. The Star is not connected to News Corp.

July 10: Rupert Murdoch arrives in London.

July 11: Murdoch withdraws News Corp’s offer to spin off BSkyB’s Sky News channel. This opens the way for the government to refer News Corp’s bid for the 61 percent of BSkyB it does not already own to the competition commission, which will carry out a lengthy probe.

• Allegations surface that journalists at News Corp papers targeted former PM Gordon Brown. Police confirm to Mr. Brown that his name was on a list of targets compiled by Mulcaire.

July 12: John Yates, assistant commissioner at London’s Metropolitan Police, criticised for deciding in 2009 not to reopen the earlier inquiry, tells a Home Affairs Committee hearing he probably did only the minimum work required before his flawed decision.

• In the United States, John Rockefeller, chairman of Senate’s commerce committee, calls for an investigation to determine if News Corp had broken any U.S. laws.

July 13: News Corp withdraws its bid for BSkyB. The move pre-empts a planned vote in parliament that had all-party support for the bid to be dropped. The company statement leaves the door open to a new offer at some point.

• Mr. Cameron gives details of a formal public inquiry into the affair, to be chaired by senior judge, Brian Leveson.

• News Corp’s Australian arm launches investigation to see if any wrongdoing at its editorial operations.

July 14: Rupert Murdoch eventually accepts request by parliament to answer questions on July 19 over the alleged crimes at the News of the World. James Murdoch also says he will appear. Rebekah Brooks agrees to appear, but says the police inquiry may restrict what she can say.

• Police arrest a ninth suspect who media name as Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World.

• FBI says it will investigate allegations that News Corp hacked into phone records of victims of Sept. 11 attacks.

• Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, part of his empire, Rupert Murdoch says News Corp handled the crisis “extremely well in every way possible” making just “minor mistakes.” Says his son James acted “as fast as he could, the moment he could.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/15/untangling-the-news-of-the-world-scandal-a-timeline/feed/2stdA man reads a copy of the final edition of the News of the World in a newsagent in London, July 10, 2011